EXPERTS!!! Are you out there?!!!Come help us!!!

What I thought was that omniscient writing means the author can show us what is going on from anyone's POV and their thoughts and feelings at a given time. They can also be a kind of narrator who knows more than the characters do.

Therefore Omniscient First person means a first-person narration with Omniscient knowledge and also the ability to show the thoughts and feelings of the other characters.

Anyway Davy, often you can have an authorial voice acting almost as another sort of character and that might be tongue-in-cheek and unreliable too. There are all sorts of techniques out there.

Oh blimey snowbell, we could go round and round forever I reckon. Like I said before, that's how I see it, and how I approach my writing. Seeing as I've never had a single thing published, ever, I guess I can't really say for certain that my way works Mind you I haven't sent anything out for over a year I think, at least, so who knows?

But I'm no expert, that's one thing that is certain!!!

I'm no expert, either. But I agree with Snowbell. My view has always been that an omniscient narrator knows the viewpoint of every character, and more than other characters know. I think the omniscient narrator is something of a dying breed in these postmodrn days because it raises the question of, 'Whose voice is this? What role is the writer playing in this story? Is this authorial intrusion?' But if you can give an omniscient voice to a character . . . .well, it's possible.

Yes. I call for experts here.

That would be my definition - snowbell's and sappholit's, I mean. A novel like 'Middlemarch' is a prime example, complete as it is with a sort of aerial view of the town and its inhabitants, and punctuated with sudden addresses from the narrator to the reader and direct calls for comparisons between characters.

Davy decided, from his own POV, that both Snowbell and Sappholit were in fact wrong, with their omniscient this, and first person that.

He got out of his chair, swiping the golden blond (!) hair from his face. This would never do, he sighed.

Snowbell didn't agree.

Sappholit was outraged. How could he even think that?





First bit - My POV.

Second bit omniscient.

Third bit - Sappholit's POV.

All of it - terrible writing.


P.S.

It was supposed to be hammy, honest!



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Snowbell's bit could be from her POV actually, by my definition. How about:

The sun slowly crept over the trees, sending a shadow across the grass, the park bathed in golden leaves and scrabbling squirrels. Down the road, next to three stationery cars, two dogs discussed the day's events.

Snowbell sat in her study, shaking her head at Davy's ramblings. She didn't agree.

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Sorry about the squirrels. Give me a break, I'm trying to sneakily do this while photocopying a huge map. It ain't easy...

Taken together though its omniscient, isn't it?

And the third line taken as just a line would represent limited third wouldn't it - as it is third from the character's POV.

You know, its arguments like this one (that you have to admit has been playing out in different forms for months) which is the reason I thought it would be helpful to have some basic definition of terms and ideas in the articles section...But nothing every came of that.

Now I'm going to try out a smiley face which Sappholit kindly messaged to tell me how to do...0

First-person omniscience, very very badly quoted:=

'I exist! I am conceived to the chimes of midnight . . . . .


My father is snoring, dreaming of the woman he was talking to earlier in the Pull and Pump, with blonde hair and a D-cup, wishing he could have stayed later, but knowing my mother would beat him up if he did. My mother, who has already had to endure sex once in the last 12 hours, is glad he isn't bothering her for a shag.

I cannot help wondering whether this is the best way to be introduced to the world.'

<Added>

Ah, much cross-posting above.

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I love Middlemarch. I didn't read it until two months ago. But my unread-Middlemarch guilt had been playing on my mind for years.

It's very hard to come up with one line to demonstrate a POV, and almost as hard to produce a catch-all definition. This is why it's so important to read a good range of fiction, so you can see these devices in action before you worry about them in isolation.

Thanks for coming to the rescue, Kate.
Shall I go mad and add a smiley face? Yes!

You'd got it sorted yourself as far as I could see.

So how do you do smiley faces? (Actually, don't tell me. I'm a devil for them.)

This is an interesting thread. Are there any books that go into very large detail on POV and narratives? I need to read something on narratives particularly as I have a WIP where I start with a narrative working along side each MCs voice then as the characters are revealed I pull the narrative back bit by bit.

But I need to read more on the topic to know if I'm doing this right or wrong. but I don't want a short chapter in a book, I have those, I want something more in depth...

Any suggestions anyone?

A